A Need So Beautiful

by Suzanne Young

  Harlin walks over, his eyes red and his beautiful face a little blotchy. “I don’t know what to do anymore,” he whispers. “You get worse every day.”

  And my heart breaks. I fought the Need and it almost killed me, it is killing me. The more I slip away, the more I’ll hurt Harlin. I don’t want to hurt him, but I don’t think I can let him go.

  I reach out my hand to him and he takes it, before sitting down next to me. He gathers me in his arms, and rests his cheek on the top of my head. I close my eyes, listening to his slow heartbeat. I relax.

  Monroe leaves but I can feel him glaring as he does. When I hear the door shut, Harlin exhales. “Monroe is pissing me off,” he says quietly.

  I prop myself up on my arms and look Harlin in the eyes. “Why?”

  “Because he’s lying too.”

  I swallow hard. “What do you mean?”

  Harlin scoffs and shakes his head. “You’re both lying to me, Charlotte. How stupid do you think I am? I know what asthma is. And I know that you shouldn’t be having attacks every day and nearly dying. And when I ask him . . . he’s like you. He’s hiding something.”

  His face hardens in anger. And I don’t know what I can tell him. I have to keep lying. “It’s asthma.”

  “Shut up.” Harlin moves away, turning his back on me. “Don’t bother talking if you’re not going to tell me the truth.”

  “Harlin.” He’s being harsh, and it’s making my chest feel raw, hurt. He doesn’t answer and I wrap myself around him from behind. I put my face against his warm neck.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “Don’t leave me.”

  Without a second’s hesitation, Harlin turns into me and cups my face with his hands. “I’m not leaving you, Charlotte,” he says. “I’m trying to keep you.”

  His hands are rough on my face. I lean in and press my mouth to his, kissing him softly, the way he usually kisses me. But instead of responding the way I expect, he pushes me back down on the cot and kisses me hard. Desperately.

  I suddenly wonder if it means something more. I wonder if he’s saying good-bye. But he continues to kiss me with an urgency I haven’t felt before. And when we’re out of breath, he buries his face in my hair and holds me tight to him.

  “Wait,” I gasp, looking around the room. “Sarah?”

  “She’s okay.”

  “Where is she?” I try to remember the last time I saw her. She was lying on the seat of the town car, unconscious.

  Harlin’s throat clicks as he swallows. “Monroe called Sarah’s father the minute he saw her. He said he couldn’t treat her without her dad’s consent.”

  I gasp and pull away. “But he treats me all the time!”

  “No offense, Charlotte,” Harlin says, “but Mercy doesn’t own half the city. Monroe has to cover himself.”

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  A booming voice echoes from the waiting room and Harlin and I exchange a glance. Sarah’s father is here.

  “I have to go out there.” I climb off the cot but Harlin catches my arm.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t. Let’s stay out of it.”

  “No.” I pull away from him and start walking to the door when I feel the Need come back, slowing creeping inside my chest. But it’s changed somehow. Not as overwhelming, and almost . . . irritating. It puts me on edge.

  Harlin follows as I make my way out into the lobby. Sarah’s parents are there, still in their formal wear. Her mother’s hair is red, but she doesn’t have the same spirit as her daughter. Maybe she did once, but now she’s not much more than a trophy wife with a Botoxed forehead and plastic boobs.

  I pause at the thought, surprised at how cruel I sound. I’d never really disliked her before, but right now, I feel unexplainable hatred. I shake my head, trying to get rid of the feeling, but when we come into view, Sarah’s father turns. His dark eyes bore into me as they narrow.

  “You,” he says, pointing. “What did you do to her?”

  “Me?”

  “You said she was in the bathroom. Where was she? What did you give her?”

  “Why would I give her anything?” I’m confused by his accusation. “I had nothing to do with this!”

  A look of disgust crosses his face. “I should have known better than to let her hang around with you. No good—”

  But then Harlin is there, standing in front like he’s taking a bullet for me.

  “I suggest you shut up. Charlotte is your daughter’s friend. Her only friend. I think maybe you owe her an apology.”

  “I will do no such thing!” he yells.

  “You’re such a prick,” Harlin says to him, and then turns away, putting his arm protectively around me.

  My mouth twitches with a smile. My boyfriend is so eloquent. For a second, I wonder if Sarah’s dad is going to argue, but he doesn’t. Instead he storms over to the receptionist.

  “I want her released now,” he says, pounding on the desk. “I’m taking her to a real hospital.”

  Rhonda sucks at her teeth and types something into the computer as the door to the back opens. Monroe walks out, pushing Sarah in a wheelchair. “Don’t bother, Rhonda,” he says toward the front desk. “I’ve already taken care of it.”

  Sarah looks terrible. Her mascara has run under her eyes and her hair is matted and tangled. Her lips are red and smudged. She glances up to meet my eyes and gives me a little shrug before she’s surrounded by her parents.

  I listen to Monroe talk to them. He tells them that she has a mild case of alcohol poisoning but that he gave her charcoal to vomit it up. That she needs fluids and rest. Monroe finishes by putting a steady hand on her shoulder and telling them she’ll be okay, physically. He doesn’t know that her father has driven her to this. And that I didn’t stop her from drinking. I wish I had.

  Her mother holds Sarah’s arm as she stands up, and her dad brushes back her hair. And for a second, I see a different side of them. Like maybe they love her. And to be honest, I’m jealous that she has a family to care about her. I have Mercy and Alex, but what about my real family?

  Again I shake away the strange thoughts popping in my head. Mercy is my mom and I’ve never doubted her love. What is going on? I don’t feel like myself.

  Harlin’s hand slips into mine and I’m suddenly comforted. He’s always there when I need him. He’s my steady heartbeat.

  Sarah and her parents pass by, her father staring straight ahead like I’m not worth his time. But Sarah glances over and offers a sad, small smile. She looks humiliated.

  “Sarah,” I start to say, but suddenly Monroe is in front of me, a stern expression on his face.

  “We need to chat,” he says.

  “No.” Harlin wraps his arm around me. “You’re done with her. She’s had a long night and—”

  “Harlin,” Monroe says, looking at him patiently. “This is about Charlotte. You can wait out here if you like, but I need to speak to my patient. Now.” Then Monroe glares at me like I should agree.

  But if I agree now, my boyfriend will be furious with me. He already doesn’t trust me. I straighten and look at Monroe.

  “I’m sorry, but—” I start to say, just as he reaches into his pocket. He pulls out the black journal, but doesn’t mention it. Monroe’s right. We do need to talk.

  I turn to Harlin. “I have to see him,” I whisper. “I promise it won’t—”

  His face clouds over quickly. “Of course you do, Charlotte. Don’t let me stand in the way of your secrets.” Harlin breaks away from me and I’m devastated as I watch him leave. But at the last second he pauses at the glass door. He looks over his shoulder at me, his face drawn. Tired.

  “I love you, Charlotte,” he says simply. And then he’s gone.

  As the door closes I wipe at the tears that have spilled over onto my cheeks. I’m ruining everything by lying to him about the Need.

  Monroe shifts uncomfortably. “Help me stop this,” I hiss. He glances cautiously at Rhonda, who’s watching us, before reaching ou
t to grab me by the arm.

  “Get in my office. You have a lot of explaining to do.”

  I sit across from him as he opens his desk and puts the journal in there, locking it. He pulls a small bottle from his pocket and swallows a pill quickly from it. Then he looks up at me, his blue eyes narrowed. “You stole from me.”

  “I had to. You wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “I told you what you needed to know.”

  “Where are the final pages?”

  “They’re not your concern.”

  “The hell they’re not!”

  Monroe exhales hard, and then studies me for a second with a look of disgust. “Take off your shirt,” he says.

  I’m startled. “No.”

  He tsks. “Don’t be difficult, Charlotte. I want to see what you’ve done to yourself. Show me your skin.”

  He knows. Somehow he knows about my dying flesh, and suddenly I don’t want to show him. Anger wells up inside me.

  “Come on,” he says impatiently.

  “Go to hell.”

  “It’s there, isn’t it?” he asks. “You feel the shadows on your soul, don’t you?”

  My eyes snap to his and I nod slowly. “It’s hate,” I say. “I feel hate.”

  “Let me see.” He walks around his desk to stand in front of me, his mouth a thin line of concern.

  Slowly I unbutton the navy jacket, biting hard on my lip as I slide it off my shoulder. Monroe gasps. I turn to look where he’s staring. My gold—it’s nearly gone. The glow is replaced with something horrible. An unthinkable gray, so cracked and dead, like it’s sucking the life out of me—splintering the skin as I watch.

  “What’s happening?” I cry out, truly afraid.

  “What have you done?” Monroe stumbles back, knocking into his desk.

  “The Need hit at the event, but I didn’t go to it. I helped Sarah instead. I thought that if I fought the impulses, this would all go away. That I could beat it like Onika did.”

  “You’re fighting it?” he asks in a hollow voice.

  “I don’t want to disappear, Monroe. I’m not ready to go.” I start to sob. “People are forgetting me sooner. Even Alex and Georgia. Even Mercy. I’m fading. And I’m not ready to go.” My voice breaks and I pull my jacket on and wrap my arms around myself.

  “I can’t watch it again,” he says, almost to himself. “I can’t.”

  I sniffle and look up at him. “Watch me dissolve?”

  “No,” he says, like I’m confused. “Watch you fight to live. You don’t understand, Charlotte. You can’t stay here.”

  “But I want to.” I sound like a begging child.

  “It’s not possible. And if you fight . . . it’s horrible. It’s so horrible.”

  “Is this what happened to Onika? Did the Need do this to her?” Was Onika dead underneath the beauty that I saw, like in my vision? Was the real her this grotesque?

  Monroe squeezes his eyes shut. “No. The Need didn’t do this to her. The Shadows did.”

  I stare at him, goose bumps rising on my arms. “What are you talking about? There was nothing in your journal about Shadows.”

  My skin begins to itch, like a slow crawl stretching over me. It’s the spot. It’s growing. “What happened to Onika?” I ask. “I have to know now.”

  He winces at the sound of her name, then takes in a deep breath. “I loved her so much. And like you, she wanted to fight it. But it ruined her.”

  “What happened?”

  “When she had first started losing her skin, we tried to cover it with makeup. But every day a little more of her was gone. Soon, no one could remember her anymore—except me.”

  “How did you try to stop it?” Hope wells up in my chest. There could be something, a small detail, a piece of the puzzle that could cure me. If I figure out where he went wrong, I might have a chance.

  “I tried a medical approach, combination of pills, toxins even. Anything that I thought could help. And when she started to hold back her compulsions, she told me it was working.” He looks at me. “But she was keeping secrets. Terrible secrets.”

  His words make me think of Harlin and how he knows that I’m keeping something from him. “What sort of secrets?”

  “That the Shadows had come for her, trying to tempt her away.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t understand. What is a Shadow?”

  “A place devoid of light. A soul devoid of light. It will eat your glow and turn you into one of them. Walking Shadows.”

  I want to rip my nails through my flesh and scrape off the gray.

  “You know how you help people, Charlotte? How you save them? The Shadows are the opposite. They drain the light from the universe. They’re evil. They spread evil.”

  “Then why? Why would anyone go into the Shadows?”

  “To be remembered. After Onika turned toward the Shadows, people didn’t forget her anymore, and she was so beautiful. A showstopper.” He glances away as if lost in a memory. “I thought that maybe she’d done the right thing.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “You can’t hide from the universe, not in a human form. The body will wear away eventually. Onika found that if she gave into her evil impulses, she could keep her form—make herself stronger. It turned her into a monster, and when I wanted her to stop, she disappeared into the darkness.”

  “So . . . she wants me to become like her?”

  “She needs you to. She wants your light, Charlotte. She has to do terrible things to stay here, and that includes destroying the good. If you let her win, you’ll be a Shadow and you’ll have to hunt for Forgotten too. You’ll have to change them.”

  “Why would she think I’d go along with that? It’s crazy. It’s—”

  “Onika gave up the light for me, to stay with me. Maybe she thinks you’d do the same for Harlin?” He tilts his head like he’s considering the answer to his question.

  “I won’t. But maybe there’s another way to—”

  “No,” he says loudly. “There is no other way. You must transform, otherwise you’ll be bound here, Charlotte. Forever.”

  My shoulder starts to throb under my hand, and I try to push away the small voice that’s telling me that forever-bound sounds a lot better than forever-gone.

  “When’s the last time you saw Onika?” Monroe asks, turning away from me to go back behind his desk.

  “Yesterday, maybe? Or the day before. She comes to me in my visions, mostly, so it’s hard to really remember.”

  “Interesting. I wonder if she appears in visions because they’re easier to manipulate than real life.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Monroe sits down on his chair and rests his elbows on the cluttered top of his desk. He looks exhausted. “I’m so sorry it’s happening like this,” he says. “I’ve really tried to keep an eye on you all this time. I didn’t want the Shadows to find you too soon. And I’d hoped you wouldn’t meet anyone—a boy. I didn’t want you to have to make a choice.”

  “Oh, thanks.” So Monroe wanted to take away my own will? How is that fair? How is that love?

  “It would have been easier,” he says. “It wouldn’t hurt this much. You’re special, sweetheart. You have to believe in that.”

  “I don’t want to be special. And I definitely don’t want to be a freaking burst of light. I want to live, Monroe. I want to live here, with Harlin. Like we’d planned.” I have to close my eyes as the tears roll out. I miss him so much it’s making me ill.

  “I can’t help you fight it,” Monroe whispers to me. “I love you too much to do that. But I can help you fill the Need. Stay in the light.”

  “You really can’t stop it?” I ask. Please. Please.

  Monroe’s eyes glass over as he stares back at me. “No.”

  Inside I’m flooded with grief. Absolute, miserable grief. I get up from the chair, my body feeling heavy and slow. “I have to leave,” I say.

  “I’ll remember you,” Monroe says. “It’s ne
ar the end, and from here on out, it’s going to be hard. Your family and friends will start to forget.”

  I offer him a sad little smile. “They already have.” Then I walk to the office door, wanting to call Harlin, but remembering that I have to go back to the museum first. I have a Need to fill.

  Chapter 19

  I catch the bus back to the museum. When it drops me off a block away, I feel the Need hit me again full force. Even though it has been pulsating through my bones the entire time, the minute I’m outside it doubles me over. I’m struck with incredible pressure through my chest, my head. I stumble to the bench and sit.

  There’s no relief. I decide to move, to finish this before it gets worse. Slowly, and still in heels, I limp toward the museum. The charity event ended a while ago, but now there are custodians cleaning up.

  The front door is propped open with a trash can and I slip in without them noticing. My heels click on the tile floor of the lobby and I freeze before reaching down to slip them off.

  I close my eyes and try to feel where I’m supposed to go. My body is hot—on fire—and it’s pulling me back toward the exhibits, back to the banquet room where we had dinner.

  I’m pretty sure everyone is gone, but before I can second-guess it, it’s like I’m pulled forward and soon I’m walking, hoping that as I get closer the pulsing in my head will stop. I’m a puppet, moving on invisible strings as I pass through the main room and back toward the banquet room.

  As I reach the huge double doors, my vision begins to blur. I look around, hoping no one is inside the room, but I can’t stop now. I pull open the door and walk in. Out of the corner of my eye I see a man in a light blue uniform.

  “Miss,” he says, “you can’t be in here. We’re cleaning.”

  I don’t answer him. I’m being pushed and prodded toward the table, toward where I was sitting.

  “Miss!” The man’s voice sounds agitated but I’m still walking.

  I pause at the table where Harlin and I sat. The room around me is becoming duller by the second; sounds are getting farther away. I think the man mentions something about calling the police.